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It’s Heritage Month in Mzansi and ahead of their highly anticipated annual event, the Scorpion Kings duo, DJ Maphorisa (Themba Sekowe) and Kabza De Small (Kabelo Motha) have been cooking…literally.
The pioneering amapiano DJs have partnered with RocoMamas in a South African delicacy-inspired Heritage Month limited-edition King's Feast menu.
The invite to sample the menu could not have come at a better time as I was suffering from the effects of the previous night’s fermented grapes and was in no mood to cook.
The menu is available at branches across the country and Scorpion Kings event goers will be able to taste these burgers at the FNB Stadium on 19 September, but I chose Bel Air Shopping Centre as it’s nearest to me.
What’s on the menu?
The menu features two burgers called the Madumane Double and the Papta Sting. The former is perfect if you’re feeling especially famished because it’s actually a double beef smash burger.
The South African twist here is that instead of gherkins, tomatoes and lettuce, the burger is stuffed with chakalaka, chorizo sausage, cheese and the juiciest sauce. The Papta Sting is a Southern Fried chicken burger featuring atchar and jalapeño peppers.
My daughter, who was my plus one, is the real cook at our house and her Papta Sting helped me to finally understand her theory about flavour balancing.
Usually, when there's a hot ingredient you often struggle to taste the other ingredients but with this burger, I could identify the sauce, chicken and all the other goodies.
My plus one’s burger dealt so well with my "morning after the night before" woes that I think it might just dethrone hot chicken wings as the perfect babalaas cure.
My plus one, who has hated atchar all her life, asked that they remove it from her burger. I politely requested the waitress to put it in a small bowl on the side but my atchar-hater gobbled it all up before I could get a second teaspoonful.
But don't underestimate the Madumane Double. Mzansi loves nyama and the meaty patties are exactly the perfect meat to satisfy a South African palate.
The chakalaka elevated the taste but I have no idea what happened to the chorizo because one minute it was there, and the next I was dealing with the rest of the ingredients but the sausage was nowhere to be found.
What’s the verdict?
We struggled to decide which burger was the winner because my plus one is a self-confessed hater of beef but she ate more of my Madumane than her own burger. I, on the other hand, just could not get enough of her Papta Sting.
I thoroughly enjoyed both burgers, which left me feeling like a traitor. You see, my friend and I are always dissing kotas with lettuce and tomatoes because what are burger ingredients doing in a kota?
She'll have to forgive me but everything was so tasty that I didn't care that this was a burger or that chakalaka and atchar didn't belong there.
Our waitress Lungile has only been with the company for three weeks but she was such a joy that this was almost hard to believe. And I know she’s genuine because we did not identify ourselves as reviewers until the end of our meal.
But a Heritage Month menu in Mzansi would not be complete without pap. Contrary to popular belief though, this dish is not native to South Africa because maize is actually a Mexican crop that made its way to Africa in the 1500s but this is a story for a different day.
The menu also features the Scorpion Kings Pan with pap balls, wings, atchar, chakalaka and other flavour-filled delicacies.
Lindi, the operator on duty at Bel Air on our visit, challenged our moreki to give us a big enough budget to sample the Scorpion Kings pan next time because she's eager to know my thoughts on the pap.
I’m not a fan of the water and maize concoction but judging by the pics, the Scorpion Kings and RocoMamas have elevated it, so who knows? I might just find myself issuing the same apology to pap eaters that I now owe “private school kotas.”
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